


downtime

by safestorms



Category: The Expanse (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-07-18 22:42:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16128269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/safestorms/pseuds/safestorms
Summary: They stand there for a while, slowly breathing each other in, Naomi feeling like she’s finally found her foothold at the edge of a precipice.The beginnings of Naomi and Holden's relationship and how they sustain each other in the moments in between.





	downtime

**Author's Note:**

> Missing moments for 2.01, 2.03 and 2.05. There are references to trauma, the genocide on Eros, Miller's death and Naomi's abuse.

After they collapse on the airlock floor, spent; Holden leans over and kisses her slow, a sharp contrast to the feverish kisses they’d just exchanged. Naomi’s body tingles with remembrance of the way he’d been practically worshipping her neck, face buried in the juncture between her ear and shoulder.

Holden winces, hand reaching to rub his back. “Next time, we’re doing this somewhere more comfortable.”

“Oh, already planning a next time, are we?” she teases.

She hadn’t expected his face to fall so quickly. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I shouldn’t have assumed.” He’s already finished pulling on his clothes and walked away before she can correct him that no, it’s not just him who wants this to continue, that this meant something to her too.

She catches up to him in the head, locking the door behind her. She clears her throat to let him know that she’s there but he doesn’t turn around, instead peeling his shirt off to reveal his exposed back to her. There’s something almost vulnerable about it, like it’s James Holden laying himself bare for her. Grabbing a sponge, she starts soaping him up. He shudders as she rubs gentle circles into his back.

“I-Naomi,” he chokes out, voice thick with confusion.

“I was kidding,” she says.

“What?”

“You’re not the only one who wants there to be a next time.”

He turns to look at her like he can’t dare to hope, eyes soft. “Yeah?”

She kisses him in reply.

“Couldn’t resist me?” he asks, eyes twinkling.

“Your face was too pretty.”

He smirks then, taking her face in his hands. She closes her eyes as he places gentle kisses all over her, her eyelids, her nose, the curve of her cheekbone; blocking everything out except the feel of his mouth on her, the warmth of him. “Are you sure? If this is what you want?” he murmurs. 

She opens her eyes, nods. She’s never been more sure.

Later at Alex’s family dinner, Holden reaches under the table, strokes the inside of her wrist, slow. Naomi doesn’t care if the rest of the crew knows that they’ve fucked but she likes the intimacy of this private gesture, meant just for her.  All throughout the meal, she feels the ghost of his breath right over her collarbone; the stubble on his face as she’d cradled it.

After dinner, Jim and her slowly explore each other's bodies in his bunk. It feels so _right_ with him. Like together they’ve created a place where they can rest. A garden. She wants as much of him as he’s willing to give. Because Belter women know better than anyone else what survival means; what it is to survive and _how_. How to make a garden for yourself out of space and metal. How to live under oppression.  How to reach for joy despite everything. 

This is how they begin. 

*

After they’ve reconciled – _I need us to be okay…we’ll do it together_ \- Jim comes to her cabin. Naomi notices he’s swapped out his Tycho sweater for his Pur n Kleen shirt. “Not wearing Fred’s Tycho sweater anymore?"

He laughs, his whole face crinkling up as he does. He seems in a better mood than he had been earlier in Fred's hotel room and she's relieved that they're not fighting anymore. “What does it matter to you?”

“I’m not doing your goddamn laundry for you, if that’s what you’re thinking. But it’s too bad. I miss that sweater. Can’t see your muscles anymore. It’s all hidden under that big shirt of yours.”

Jim’s leaning in closer now. Close enough that she can feel his breath fanning her face hot, the tip of his nose almost touching hers. “So what do you want me to do about it, Naomi Nagata?” God she loves when he’s smirking at her like this, endearingly goofy in a way that manages to also be devastatingly flirty. Who knew that she’d one day be fucking the annoying second officer/XO of the Canterbury?

“What do you think?” she says, leaning in to steal a quick kiss. “Let’s take it off, shall we? Now would be good. I’m a little sick of waiting.”

He smiles into her mouth. “Hmm, are you?” he asks. “At your command then, Captain Nagata.”

“I thought I’d told you I don’t want to be Captain. It’s a shit job. Can’t say I mind _sleeping_ with the Captain though. It does have its perks.”

“Oh, you don’t mind, do you?”

“More stripping. Less talking.” She pulls him in for a blistering kiss which definitely shuts him up. 

Later while he’s gone to get a drink, she picks his shirt up off the floor, pulls it on over her head. It’s silly for a grown woman to get all giddy like a schoolgirl over wearing her boyfriend’s shirt but it’s like she can’t help herself because Jim brings out the happy in her; the ecstatic. Little parts of her she’d thought were long since dead, slowly coming back to life. She inhales the scent of him. She never wants to take it off.

“I’m going to take a shower,” she says when he gets back. He can’t take his eyes off her bare legs as she walks to the door and it sends a thrill running through her. She’s never felt so wanted. Sure she’s had the odd lay or two a few times over the years since she’d run away to the _Cant_ and they were satisfying enough but not with someone she sees on a day-to-day basis, someone she practically _lives_ with. Relies on. Depends on for her life. It’s been so long since someone had looked at her so attentively, not just with lust but with that soul-deep desire that’s more hard to come by; the kind of longing that’s so far past aching that it turns to sweetness on your tongue, that means _I want you if you’ll let me and because you want me too, and I cherish you for it._ For so long, all she wanted to do was disappear. Jim makes her want to be seen.

“That looks good on you,” he says once he’s finally managed to tear his eyes away from her legs.  

“You should always walk around shirtless. I’m practically doing you a favor, stealing your shirt.” Then she says more seriously, “Jim...you know what I said earlier...you know I was kidding, right? When I said this, _us_ is something I don’t mind. It’s more than that to me.”

His smile gets wider and it’s so open and warm, inviting her in. “I’m glad,” he says ducking his head suddenly bashful. But then he looks up at her, gaze intent, almost intense like he wants her to see inside his soul. Like he wants to lay himself wide open for her. “It’s more than that to me too.”

“Okay. Good.”

“Glad we cleared that up. Also, Naomi?”

“Yes?”

“I like my shirt on you.”

*

As Eros heads on its collision course with Venus, they all toast to Miller in the _Roci_ ’s galley, an elegy of sorts. Alex and Amos drift off after with silent nods to Miller’s empty place at the table, leaving her and Holden alone. Naomi can see how tense Jim is by the way his knuckles are clenching his bulb of coffee in a death grip, stress written into the hard line of his jaw. They’d come so close to death and on top of that, he’s had to face the stuff of his nightmares.

“Jim,” she calls softly and he turns to look at her like he’s blinking out of a trance. “Where’s your head at?” She cups his face with her hand, stroking his cheek gently. “Come back to me.”

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m here.” He lets out a long exhale, leaning forward to touch his forehead to hers. They stand there for a while, slowly breathing each other in, Naomi feeling like she’s finally found her foothold at the edge of a precipice.

“We did it. We’re in this together,” she whispers.

Jim brushes his nose against hers. For a moment, it feels like they are the only two people in the world, suspended in this liminal space, outside of time, a brief respite against the unknown.

He pauses and looks at her, eyes drinking her in. “Together,” he murmurs. Then he kisses her slow and deep, like he’s savoring her, like he can’t bear to not be connected to her skin to skin in this moment. She responds with equal fervor. As long as she lives, she thinks, she’ll never get the taste of him out of her mouth.

They wrap themselves around each other in his bunk later, limbs entwined as if by re-defining collision with their bodies, they can somehow make up for the destruction of Eros. But life doesn't work that way.  She loves the sound of his rumbling gravelly voice as he murmurs her name in her ear over and over again, how it makes the heat flare in her belly. She shifts her legs, gasping, “right there,”and he knows her well enough by now to know what she means. She bites back a moan as he moves his fingers just so,  thumb brushing against her clit. “Like this?,” he murmurs, watching her intently and she nods, the tension inside her like a spring uncoiling. She wants to say _you make survival not easy but bearable._ For a moment this, this is enough to hold back their demons. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm not sure what this is or whether I even like it. However, comments are still very much appreciated. You can also message me at safestorms on tumblr.


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